


Be My I Want Nothing More

by leigh57



Category: Walking Dead (TV)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-19
Updated: 2014-03-19
Packaged: 2018-01-16 07:45:15
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,168
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1337575
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/leigh57/pseuds/leigh57
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Part of him must be convinced that if he lets go again, she'll disappear.</p><p>Like before.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Be My I Want Nothing More

**Author's Note:**

> The notes I have on this could be a novel themselves, but I'll try to avoid that. In theory, this is a Daryl POV companion piece to [What the Sky Looked Like](http://archiveofourown.org/works/1134244). However, I started it before TWD had _fully_ succeeded in reducing my brain to a useless pile of mush, aka before "The Grove." At this point, it's way AU, so definitely don't read if that bothers you.
> 
> In any case, I'm posting it now because regardless of its quality, I can't work on it anymore. I'm going to cross my fingers that having a little fic that's way AU and on the lighter side will make a few people smile. 
> 
> Thank you, adrenalin211, for being the giant never-ending source of support that you always are and for constantly encouraging me not to give up on this one. Also thank you so much to imorca for providing another pair of eyes when I lost all objectivity.
> 
> This is also a fill for the [USS-Caryl fanfiction challenge](http://uss-caryl.tumblr.com/post/79969491309/uss-caryls-operation-happy-re-sanity-week%22). I picked the word "nuzzle," because even though I don't use it specifically in the story, it feels like a lot of what's happening here, if that makes any sense.
> 
> The title is taken from "Asleep at Last," by The Wailin' Jennys. I mainlined that song while writing this, in addition to "Hard Way Home," by Brandi Carlile, "Clear Blue Eyes," by Amos Lee feat. Lucinda Williams, and "Leave the Light On," by Chris Smither.

*************************

His gratitude at having her back (in the camp, in his tent, in his arms, in his _life_ ) shows up in different ways.

Some surprise him. Some don't.

After the night by the fire, when he pulled her hand into his and everything snapped back into place, he discovers that he can't stop touching her. 

It's not about sex.

(Although he can't stop doing that either, and at night when it's quiet and they've just finished and he can taste the sweat on the back of her neck and feel her heart calming down beneath his fingertips, he wonders what the _fuck_ he did in a previous life or something to be lucky enough that a woman like her lets a guy like him put his hands on her at all. It's why he asks. Every time.)

But he comes up with excuses for any kind of physical contact.

A brush of his arm against her shoulder while she's stirring rabbit stew (the sideways smile he gets sends sparks over his skin). His boot lined up with hers underneath the table, tiny scrape of soles. Smoothing a leaf out of her hair when she comes back from stacking wood. Leaning to slide his lips over her cheekbone before he has to head out on a run (and fuck whoever's watching, since they know anyway and he doesn't give two shits). His palm resting on the curve of her hip as he falls asleep. His pinkie twisted around hers during dinner, eating with his left hand for a few minutes because part of him must be convinced that if he lets go again, she'll disappear.

Like before.

_________________________

Now that it's over, now that he at least knows how _that_ part of the fucking story ends, he realizes that his search for her wound up divided into three stages.

At first (once they'd all dragged themselves back together, everyone who was left anyway), it was the only thing he did.

Up every morning packed and dressed before first light (he couldn't sleep for more than forty-five minutes or an hour, nightmares a mixture of Merle and his father and Sophia and Hershel and Carol running fast, so fast, but not fast enough), he'd kill and bring back anything edible that happened across his path, but he wasn't looking for food.

He was looking for her.

One night, when he drove back into camp long past dark, a deer and two fat rabbits in the truck bed and walker blood all over his clothes, caking in the creases of his skin, Rick offered him a hand with his gear and said, his voice tired but convicted, "You're just usin' gas. I gave her a car. She could be in South Carolina by now. She could-"

"You'll wanna stop talkin'. Now." Daryl closed his eyes to shut off _one_ kind of assault while he let the rage wash over and through him. Bitching at Rick and stirring up shit at camp wasn't gonna help him find Carol.

Rick stood for a few seconds, eyes fixed on the ground to the left of Daryl's boot. After a stretched out silence, he nodded and walked away.

_________________________

The fuel of pure violent determination ran out after about ten days.

Phase two was an endless exhausted drudge.

Time went sideways and strange in his mind. He'd find himself nauseous, dry heaving into a clump of grass by the side of the road, only to realize when he traced it back that he hadn't eaten for a day and a half.

(After that he started packing the long-expired granola bars nobody else at camp wanted to eat. He didn't figure a bunch of sugar, raisins, nuts, and oats was gonna kill him, and if it did, he couldn't rightly say he gave a rat's ass.)

He went so long without sleep that he started to slip in and out of small hallucinations. It never got bad enough that anyone else noticed (he was barely at camp anyway, so it's not as if there was an easy way to gauge what had or hadn't become standard behavior for him). But a couple times he opened his eyes with his head back against the seat of the truck and found himself talking to Merle, who usually seemed to be on about whiskey or some waitress with big tits, or Hershel, who kept saying something about the healing properties of tea. Once Andrea was bitching at him about how he was seriously an idiot because he should have taken a left a couple miles back or something. When he snapped back to reality, he couldn't help the small unfamiliar grin that stretched the tired muscles in his face.

(He could see Carol’s smile, remember the lift inside, the way his body felt lighter every time she let loose with that special one that belonged to nobody but him.)

Nineteen days into his search, he happened on some fresh car tracks veering to the right off an access road into what must have been a nice little development before everything got fucked. It was starting to rain, so he sped up, revving the worn out engine faster than he should have before he shifted. The tracks stopped in front of a small two-story house with dead flowers hanging in evenly-spaced pots on the deck and a mostly chewed up animal carcass (probably a dog from the looks of it) halfway underneath an overgrown shrub.

Trying to be quiet, he took the porch stairs two at a time, landing lightly, and pushed the door open, slow. His fingers shook on his bow, but he ignored the jitters, scanning the entryway for signs of life.

"Carol?" he said into the silence, volume low. "'S'just me. Don't gotta be scared if you're here." As an afterthought he added, "I'm alone, okay?" Only quiet echoed back at him; he watched the floating dust that caught the faint light from the window. Outside, the sprinkle that had spattered onto the car as he drove up had rapidly shifted into a deluge. He saw a flash of white and only got to two before thunder vibrated the boards under his soles. 

As silently as he could, he checked every room in the house, panic snaking up his spine and twisting his stomach. In the kitchen he found a candle ("Christmas Wreath," it said, and the imprinted picture, a warm roaring fire with five stockings hanging from the mantle, made his eyes water).

He pressed his finger to the wax. Still soft.

Barely breathing, he went around the corner into the half-bathroom.

One of her shirts was tossed in the sink, at least a third of it covered in blood.

Someone was saying, _No, no, NO._ Took a second before he realized it was him, another second to realize he didn’t know if he’d spoken or just thought it so loud it felt that way.

Grabbing the shirt, he ran outside, using the back door this time. Maybe there were more tracks there, maybe she'd just taken a different route, maybe-

Within thirty seconds, he was soaked to the skin, water sliding down his neck and back, blurring his vision. Blood from Carol's shirt mixed with the water and dripped off his hand.

Any tracks that might have been there, even ten minutes ago, were gone. It hadn't rained for days, so they wouldn't have been deep.

For a while, he stood in the rain, trying to force the information he knew into a reality he could process.

She'd been here. She was hurt in some way. But no body, not enough blood to kill her. Was she bitten? Had she been attacked by something that wasn't a walker?

He strode back to the truck and swung himself into the seat, slamming the door _hard_. Fuck the walkers if they wanted him. Lightning gashed through the air again, followed within a second by thunder that rattled the windows. The rain was so thick he couldn't have driven if he wanted to.

He didn't want to.

Daryl put his forehead against the peeling fabric of the steering wheel and sobbed, so violently that he shook and his lungs made a horrible rasping noise each time he tried to suck in a breath.

He didn't fight. At all. He gave in, let it happen until gradually, the shaking slowed, his breaths became longer and deeper, and he could feel the sting of salt drying on his face.

Taking a few swigs of water from the canteen he'd brought with him, he rubbed the back of his grimy hand over his eyes and waited out the storm for another fifteen or twenty minutes, as the torrent stopped and the drizzle returned.

With a slight choke from accidentally breathing water, he slammed the truck into gear and drove back to camp.

_________________________

When he was a kid, up until that moment by the train tracks when he was in third grade, he walked home every day hoping that this time, maybe _this time_ , he'd shove the sticking door open to find his mom making hot chocolate by the stove instead of wasted, sprawled on the couch watching some shit show on tv.

He made it all up in his mind. Her hair washed and combed smooth like in the old pictures Merle had hidden in a battered cardboard box under his bed. Fresh jeans and a clean shirt, maybe even some of the pink lip gloss he'd chopped wood for three days to buy her on her last birthday. _What the hell?_ , she'd said. _Since when do I wear makeup?_ Wildflowers from the back yard on the table, the scent of onions and spices, maybe even a candle.

It never happened.

Not once.

Sure, there had to be different rungs of hell, and every now and then she'd put herself together enough to smile at him for a second, hand him a package of those crappy cheese and peanut butter crackers for a snack, ask him if he'd had fun at recess. (He spent all his recesses hiding from the other kids, but he always lied and said yes.) Mostly though, he'd find her vacantly staring at a soap opera or already snoring, bottle sitting upright by the edge of the couch, right next to her ash-covered plate of cigarette butts.

He had seven different routes home from school, and he made certain to choose at random, no pattern to it at all. Took some time, but he was better at silence and vanishing than he was at anything else besides hitting shit with the crossbow, and one day, as he kicked the rock in front of him forward for probably the hundredth time and watched the soft brown explosion as the dust flared up, he realized that the bruises had faded, at least the ones from the asshole kids at school.

He grinned, couldn't help himself. Yeah, they might be bigger or faster or both, but none of them had his persistence.

One afternoon, after he'd gotten stuck late at school trying to finish a test filled with math problems he couldn't understand anyway (his head swam and he couldn't concentrate, because the only part of his lunch he'd managed to salvage was one of those damn snack-sized bags of off-brand potato chips), he wound up by the tracks just as a huge freight train started clipping by.

He stood and waited, looking up at the sky all covered with the clouds that looked like angel wings (they had a name, but he couldn't remember what it was), the back of his neck prickling with sweat in the afternoon sun while he listened to the clank of metal on metal.

He never figured out why, but right then, for some reason, that's when he understood.

He was never gonna go home and find her sober.

Ever.

By the time he finally walked up the steps that day, the sun was slipping down quickly and the angel-wing clouds had vanished. The air smelled like smoke and rain.

He shoved the sticking door open and (without even glancing left to evaluate his mom on the couch) went into the kitchen. Dropping his dusty backpack by the table, he jumped up on the counter to grab himself a chipped cup.

And he made his own hot chocolate.

_________________________

The third phase was a weird mix of something like two thirds numb resignation and one third his lifelong stubborn inability to . . . give up.

He spent more time at camp, stopped going out every day (though when he did go, it was farther and longer, more miles to cover before he could get anywhere he hadn't already looked).

He hunted. He chopped wood and worked on the cars and the bus. He built a huge platform in one of the giant oak trees at the edge of camp, one that could sleep at least eight people, high up and safe from walkers.

At night, when he didn't have watch, when he'd checked all his arrows and studied the maps and choked down whatever weird wild mushroom soup Maggie had made, he'd curl the itchy wool of the cheap blanket into his fingers, shut his eyes to block out whatever he could of the whole fucking world, and let himself drown.

The sound of her laughter. The light on her face when she read to the kids, words up and down like music. The way she'd sit on the edge of the bunk, legs swinging, and say, _Did anything happen today you feel like telling me about?_ (The weird part, for him anyway, is that the answer was always, _Yeah_. He always had something he wanted to tell her about.) Her low, sleepy voice first thing in the morning. _Stay here? Breakfast can wait five more minutes._ The ache that exploded in him the first time she'd said, _Kiss me like that again_. The soft warmth of her skin, that place on her throat where he could rest his lips and just breathe, in and out.

Her smile.

Her smile was where he always had to stop.

He'd drag the back of his ripped up hand over his eyes and force himself to listen to the rush of the river.

Force himself to try and make his mind blank.

_________________________

He found her pretty much by accident.

He was driving a piece of shit Chevy he'd found along the road and hotwired, that stupid song about angels and centerfolds stuck in his head for some reason. Mika had sliced open her hand trying to skin a woodchuck yesterday afternoon, and when Maggie went to get the rubbing alcohol, she'd discovered they were almost out of disinfectant.

Daryl had grabbed his pack before anyone else could say a word. He always volunteered now. Anything was better than hanging around the damn camp, listening to everyone talk about food and math and plans and disinfectant.

As if everything just went _on_. 

As if her absence didn't matter.

The girls were the only ones who acted any different in his presence. A couple days ago, he'd been putting a new battery in one of the cars when Lizzie appeared out of nowhere, holding a bowl of sliced peaches toward him. "Beth wanted me to bring you this." She shoved a piece of hair behind her ear, eyes shifting anxiously. "She said maybe you'll eat it if I give it to you."

Daryl took the bowl, trying to ignore the sick twist in his gut when the sticky sweet smell of the fruit hit him in the face. "Thanks." He assumed she'd vanish then, skitter away like everyone did now. He'd taken to picturing himself surrounded by one of those force fields on the _Star Trek_ episodes he sometimes managed to catch when he snuck out of bed and hid behind the corner of the couch, his old man too passed out drunk to notice.

But Lizzie stood there, rubbing the hem of her sleeve between her fingers, until she finally looked him right in the eyes and said, "It's my fault. Not yours. If you don't find her-"

"I'm gonna goddamn _find_ her!" he yelled, surprised and instantly ashamed by the volume of his own voice.

"I didn't mean-"

"No, 'm'sorry," he said, careful to soften his tone and to keep looking at her, even though it made him feel exposed, uncomfortable. He glanced down at the bowl of peaches and, to lighten the atmosphere, observed, "You didn' bring me a fork."

Something close to the shadow of a smile passed over Lizzie's face as she turned to go. "Why would I? You always use your fingers anyway."

Daryl was trying not to think about the quiet haunted ache in the little girl's eyes when he noticed a set of tire tracks running a little to the left of his.

Tracks that hadn't been there two miles back.

Tracks that couldn't be more than a day old, because it had rained like hell yesterday morning.

He would have tried not to hope, but he knew that was bullshit. Heart slamming at what felt like twice its normal rate, he followed the light indentations in the dirt, his mind talking to someone he was pretty sure couldn't hear him.

Please. Please. _Please._

_________________________

When she pulled up in front of the house in the dusty greenish-brown station wagon Rick had described, it took him at least fifteen seconds to convince himself that she wasn't another hallucination.

She got out of the car, slammed the door, but then just stood there staring at him, the blue in her eyes fifty times brighter than even his best, most vivid memories.

He kind of lost control after that, throwing himself off the porch in one lunge, running across the yard, each step like ten because he wasn't fucking touching her yet.

But then he was. Touching her. Her whole body soft and hot and _real_ , shaking uncontrollably in his arms, her hair tickling his neck (he remembered laughing, trying to sleep, her doing it on purpose just to piss him off, to keep him awake and make him talk more), her hands gripping the sweaty sides of his shirt.

His voice was malfunctioning, but he coughed out, "You're alright? Nothin's hurt?"

When she didn't answer him, his exhausted mind played twelve tracks at once, images from the endless nightmares that smacked him from sleep. Finding her, but scratched or bitten, hurt or worse, something he couldn't fix for all the wanting in the world. 

So he just grabbed at her, clumsy, his hands everywhere, shoving her sleeves and pulling up her shirt, looking for blood or scrapes or gashes.

Then her voice.

Rusty.

Beautiful. 

"I'm fine. Nothing's hurt. I'm _fine_."

He breathed all the way in, a giant gulp of air to steady him. He stroked the warm skin on the back of her neck while something inside his mind chanted, again and again.

Thank you.

Thank you.

_Thank you._

_________________________

"Relax your shoulder a little." He holds her elbow in his fingers, pushing it down an inch or so. He can feel the give in her muscles, the way she's trying to shape herself to his instructions. "Now pull back as far as you can without hurtin' your arm."

"Like this?" Her bicep flexes and he tries not to be distracted by the sun on her skin. "More tension?"

He shakes his head. "Perfect. Show me what you got."

She adjusts her aim a touch to the left, then lets the bolt fly. There's a soft _thwack_ when the arrow embeds itself in the tree bark maybe an inch outside of the makeshift target he'd nailed there. "Dammit," she mutters, frustrated. She doesn't even look at him, just holds out her hand for another arrow.

"Why're you pissed?" He places the arrow in her palm and gently adjusts her shoulders.

She shrugs. "You make it look so easy."

The familiar warm rush her compliment brings on makes his face hot, so he tries to compensate by being extra businesslike. "'S'only 'cause I've been practicin' for decades. Here, try this." Sliding his arms over hers to correct her position, he realizes his mistake the moment his mouth lands near her neck. Her skin's hot from the afternoon sunlight, and she smells like vanilla and peaches. His mind doesn't need a single drop of permission from him to wander back to the night before, waking up to her tongue on his chest and her hand sliding down over his hip to the inside of his thigh. _I can't sleep. Wanna keep me company?_

He swallows and tries to refocus, but it's already too late. He doesn't believe in mind reading, but the woman comes fuckin' close sometimes. Her face tilted toward him, the edge of her mouth lifts in a flirty grin; she angles her neck sideways and pushes her whole body back against him at the same time, her ass firm against his hardening dick.

"You're not concentratin'," he whispers, but he's helpless to stop himself from starting a trail of openmouthed kisses at the curve of her shoulder, licking and kissing his way towards her ear. She shivers in his arms, goosebumps rising on her skin even though he knows she's far from cold, and he's almost ashamed of how powerful he feels when he makes her body react this way. 

Maybe someday he'll get used to how much she wants him, how much she seems to love having his hands all over her, but it's still so new.

Letting the crossbow slip to the ground, she turns in his arms, kissing his mouth open with soft, searching lips. When her tongue smoothes along the edge of his he jolts, and she laughs, murmuring into his mouth, "You started it."

He halfway wishes he could be mad, because goddammit, he _does_ want her to learn how to use the crossbow he found for her, wants to give her one more method of defense, especially since she started insisting on doing runs sometimes. (He still jolts awake at least three or four times a night, heart slamming, and he has to rest a hand on her leg and count backwards from ten to slow his breathing.) But she's still kissing him, a delicious hum vibrating her throat as her mouth teases. Her hands slip into his back pockets and drag him closer, until they're pressed together so completely that he can't help rocking into her thigh.

"I can see what you two are havin' for dinner, but what about the rest of us?" Daryl leaps back from Carol like a surprised rabbit and turns to see Michonne standing a few yards away, wearing one of the biggest shit-eating grins he's seen for a while.

His face instantly feels thirty degrees hotter. He glances at the dirt, then at Carol.

She, however, looks nothing more than amused, any color in her face the result of being thoroughly kissed, not embarrassed. Reaching down to pick up the crossbow, she smirks at Michonne and says, "He was just giving me a few lessons."

Michonne raises an eyebrow. "Clearly." She leans her head back in the direction of camp. "Rick needs help with one of the trucks. Want me to tell him you're-" She pauses, making sure to milk everything she can from this moment. "Busy?"

"Shut your mouth. I'll be right there."

"Take your time." Michonne winks at Carol and saunters off toward camp, katana glinting in the sun as it swings on her shoulder.

When he turns back to Carol, she’s already threading another bolt into the crossbow, impatiently shoving sweaty hair away from her forehead. “You want me to stay?” he asks, careful this time to keep his eyes focused above her neck. “Rick can wait a minute.”

She glances over her shoulder and smirks. “Definitely not. I’ll get a lot better at this without you here to distract me.”

He still hesitates, can’t help it.

She’s a magnet.

He studies her as she lines up the shot, all taut muscles and concentrated focus. She draws the string back another inch and lets the arrow fly, and this time it nails the target. Dead center. “Damn,” he mutters.

Picking up the canteen on the ground, she unscrews the lid and pauses before lifting it to her mouth. “Go on,” she says, and the way her eyes crinkle at the edges when she smiles makes his stomach flip sideways like it used to when Merle would hang him upside down and swing him back and forth by his ankles. “I’ll be here when you get back.”

“Okay.” He steps forward just enough to drop a kiss on her bare shoulder and then walks toward camp, boots smacking the dirt as her words spin like a twister in his head before settling, a warm down comforter over the fear.

Because he believes now.

She will.

*************************


End file.
